The Media Research Center exerted much effort in minimizing scandals surrounding Sarah Palin. Now it's doing the same for John McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal.

Scott Whitlock complained that an ABC report on McCain and Keating "left out the fact that McCain was exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee." Whitlock left out the fact that the committee concluded that McCain's conduct "reflected poor judgment" in his dealings with Charles Keating.

Seton Motley highlighted an appearance by "man of integrity" Robert Bennett, special counsel to the House ethics committee on the Keating scandal, on (man of less integrity) Mark Levin's radio show. Bennett claimed, "I saw nothing in my investigation that would call into question John McCain's ethics." Like Whitlock, Motley failed to note the full decision of the committee, nor did he describe what exactly McCain did -- accept free rides on Keating's jet, vacationed with Keating, invested in a shopping mall with him, wrote letters to regulators for him, helped secure the nomination of a Keating associate to a banking regulatory board, and urged regulators to back off Keating.

By contrast, as we've detailed, the MRC insisted that the Clintons were guilty of various deeds even after investigations cleared them.